Lost

by Dean Murray

  "Wait, your girlfriend is seventeen? Please tell me that she's seventeen. If you're dating a sixteen-year-old I swear I'll kill you myself."

  "We don't have time for this, Celeste. How well do you know this hospital?"

  "Better than you do."

  "Then lead or get out of the way, but either way shut up."

  I stopped in the hallway, looking both directions in an effort to figure out the hospital's numbering system, and Celeste brushed past me.

  "Intensive care is this way, but this conversation isn't over. Mom and I raised you better than this—I'm not going to just sit around while you date someone half your age. That's statutory…it's just wrong."

  It took us less than thirty seconds to get to Kristin's room with Celeste leading the way. We weren't running, but most people would have had to run to keep up with us.

  "What's the best way out of here, sis?"

  Ash flipped up the thin blanket covering Kristin and slid his bag underneath her bare legs as he waited for a response from Celeste.

  "There are only two main entrances with two larger parking lots and half a dozen smaller ones scattered around the periphery of the building. Do you guys have a vehicle?"

  I shook my head as I slipped my bags under Kristin and then covered her back up. The bags were only marginally less conspicuous this way, but it was better than nothing.

  "We were going to buy or steal one once we knew Kristin was going to be okay. No time for anything other than stealing one now."

  Ash already had the wheels on the bed down and was moving the IV bag over so it was suspended from the bed rather than the freestanding rod next to the bed.

  "Whoever trained you was an idiot. My car is in the west parking lot, we'll take it."

  I grabbed the wires running between Kristin and the bank of expensive monitors next to her and disconnected them with a single powerful pull that would have made Donovan flinch. The computers at the nurse's station started beeping as soon as the monitors were disconnected, but it would be a few seconds before anyone made it over to Kristin's room.

  Ash patted the bed as he looked at his sister. "Hop up there and give everyone a show so they don't stop to think about the fact that we're stealing one of their patients."

  Celeste didn't look particularly happy to be taking orders from her kid brother, but it wasn't a bad plan, all things considered. She climbed up on the bed, straddled Kristin's chest, pointed to the left, and then we were out in the hall.

  I took the front of the bed, but I didn't really need to pull it along at all, Ash provided all of the propulsion anyone could have possibly wanted, all I needed to do was just steer the rocket ship as it went screaming down the hall.

  "Call the dialysis unit and tell them we'll be there in four minutes and they need to be ready for us!"

  Celeste was a better actor than I would have given her credit for. She managed to sound terrified but in control and anyone watching us from the nursing station wouldn't have been able to tell that she wasn't actually compressing Kristin's chest.

  "That should buy us some time assuming that we're actually headed in the direction of the dialysis unit."

  Celeste shot her brother a dirty look as she bent down and pretended to give Kristin mouth-to-mouth.

  "Of course the dialysis is this direction. Turn left at the next intersection and then hang a right at the end of the hall. The stairs we want are sixty yards further along."

  Supernatural strength is nice, but it only lets you do so much without decent traction. At the speed that Ash was moving it was all I could do to keep us from crashing into the wall. My feet slid across six feet of slick linoleum floor before the leading edge of my shoes slammed into the far wall and gave me something substantial to push against.

  Celeste wasn't ready for the sudden change in direction and started toppling over as I muscled the bed around and got it headed the right direction again. When Ash slid into the same wall and the back end of the bed changed directions it was too much for her and she nearly took a header into the wall. She saved herself by grabbing a bar on the bed, but it was a close thing and she bent the slender metal in the process.

  The deformed bar made me revise my estimate of her strength up a couple notches. You didn't do something like that in human form without having some weight behind you and on her it was obviously all muscle.

  "Some warning next time would be good so I don't accidentally put my knee into your girlfriend's chest and start her bleeding again. It would be a pity to have her die in the middle of your heroic escape attempt."

  "Yeah, but not as much of a shame as having all of us die because we didn't make it out of here before Onyx showed up with his goons. We're turning now."

  Ash hadn't slowed down at all, but I was ready for the turn this time. I started trying to change direction at the earliest possible second and then checked myself with a hand against the wall a split second after my feet slid into it. The extra leverage was enough for me to bring the bed around despite the greater speed that Ash had carried into the second turn.

  "Nice trick, but you would have looked kind of stupid if you'd put your hand through the wall."

  Ash had taken off all the stops, we were practically flying down the hall as I looked over at Celeste.

  "I could see the texture change where they'd put nails through the sheetrock and hit the stud underneath. I hit the wall directly over the stud, so I knew I'd be okay."

  She muttered something under her breath that sounded a bit like "speaking of wannabe studs" and then a few seconds later Ash and I started decelerating the bed to make sure that we wouldn't overshoot the door to the stairwell.

  "Elevator?"

  Ash shook his head at Celeste. "There isn't time. Jump off, we're taking the stairs and we don't need any extra weight in the mix."

  Celeste jumped off of the bed with all of the lithe grace I would have expected from that slender, toned body, and made it to the stairwell door before us. She held it open so we didn't even have to slow down until we hit the actual stairs.

  The table was heavier than I expected it to be. Between the steel frame, the mattress, bedding, Kristin, and our bags it felt like it was pushing five hundred pounds. Normally I would have said that I couldn't have carried that much weight with my arms extended up above my head, but I managed to take it down the entire flight of stairs without jostling Kristin badly enough to make her fall off of the bed.

  Maybe it wasn't as heavy as I thought, or maybe the adrenaline floating through my bloodstream made me stronger than normal. Either way, I was relieved as we exited the stairwell and saw the entrance less than twenty yards away.

  We got a couple of odd looks from people as we wheeled Kristin outside, but nobody tried to stop us. Once we left the sidewalks the going got rougher, a lot rougher. The wheels on the bed had been designed with smooth hallways in mind and didn't function nearly as well on the asphalt surface of the parking lot.

  Celeste came up to the other side of the bed from me and latched onto the frame. "Just pick it up and carry it. I'm over here on the right."

  A muted grunt from Ash signaled that he'd picked up his end, and then things got much smoother. I thought we had it made until I heard footsteps behind us and looked back to see a tall blond guy chasing us.

  Celeste saw him too and nearly tripped. "Ash, that's Nicolas. He's Onyx's right-hand man. We're screwed."

  Ash's voice had the calm, almost dead, overtones that he picked up when things were at their worst.

  "Don't slow down. Get Kristin into the vehicle. I'll deal with this guy."

  The back set of wheels hit the ground with enough force to make Kristin's teeth rattle and she groaned in pain despite all of the painkillers in her system, but Celeste and I shifted backwards so that we were carrying the bed from the middle without missing a step.

  Ash opened fire on Nicolas as Celeste steered the bed towards a white Pathfinder. The shots were close together but still controlled as Ash slowly backed
towards us.

  "Help Ash!"

  I shook my head at Celeste. "You heard him, he'll handle that guy. We've got to get Kristin and the bags into your car before more of them show up."

  "You don't understand, Isaac. You don't just handle Nicolas. He's like a force of nature. Ash is in over his head, he just doesn't realize it."

  Ash went to rapid fire and I looked back and saw that she was right. Opening fire on someone in a public place, even with a silenced pistol, even at six in the morning, was the kind of thing guaranteed to bring cops swarming over the area, but Nicolas had escalated things faster than I'd expected. He'd shifted into hybrid form and he was using the cars in the parking lot for cover as he worked his way towards Ash.

  Nicolas, as a hybrid, was only an inch or two shorter than Jasmin was these days and he was fast, faster than anyone I'd ever seen other than Brandon. I shifted forms, in the middle of the parking lot, surrounded by who knew how many witnesses, and charged back to help Ash.

  As Nicolas ducked behind another car I heard the slide on Ash's gun lock back and he turned and sprinted towards me across the black pavement as he reached for a fresh magazine. Ash made it exactly one step before Nicolas stepped out from behind the red car he'd been sheltering behind and chased after Ash with the ground-devouring run of a hybrid moving at full speed.

  It took Ash two more steps to get a new magazine seated and spin back around so he could bring his weapon to bear again. I wasn't going to make it in time. I hadn't realized just how much ground Celeste and I had covered after Ash had stopped to engage Nicolas.

  Ash's first round from the new magazine hit Nicolas in the chest. It was the perfect shot, his placement was flawless. It should have bored in between two ribs and taken Nicolas right in one of the chambers of his heart.

  It didn't. It wasn't until Ash fired his next shot that it registered for me that I'd seen the bullet ricochet off of Nicolas and then strike sparks off of the ground a dozen yards away. I could see where the bullet had ripped a long furrow in his flesh, but it hadn't penetrated—and that shouldn't have been possible.

  I'd hit people in that exact same spot and I knew for a fact that hybrids didn't come equipped with anything capable of turning a bullet in that part of their anatomy, but there wasn't any arguing with my own eyes.

  I suddenly understood why Celeste had been so terrified.

  Ash was still moving backwards, trying to close the distance between the two of us and buy me time to get there and help him. Working together was our only hope—neither of us had a chance of beating a monster like Nicolas was turning out to be.

  Ash emptied the rest of his magazine as I took two more steps towards him and then turned back around. They were good shots, more than half of them hit. Nicolas was bleeding from more than a dozen different holes, some of them deep, but none of them were in vital spots.

  Moving at a full sprint, Ash was capable of covering a lot of distance, but it was nothing compared to how fast Nicolas was moving. I was still three steps away from Ash when Nicolas reached him and I had a split second to realize that Ash's mistake had been slowing down to fire that last magazine.

  Nicolas put his claws into Ash's back and ripped the entire right side of Ash's back and chest open. Ash went down in a spray of blood and then it was my turn.

  I was moving at full tilt, but so was Nicolas so the advantage went to the biggest, heaviest guy, which wasn't me. We hit hard enough that I felt a couple of ribs crack with bright jolts of pain that I knew would turn into a special kind of stabbing agony once I shifted back to human form and didn't have the special benefits of a hybrid's nervous system muting the pain.

  I managed to get a set of claws into his stomach before the impact sent me flying backwards. The feel of his flesh tearing underneath my claws was satisfying after what he'd done to Ash, but I knew it wasn't the kind of thing that was going to stop Nicolas.

  We both rolled to our feet, but his blinding speed meant that I was only just able to get set before he was on me. I tried to circle to the right, but he just charged in, moving too quick for me to land anything other than glancing blows.

  He buried his right hand into my gut all the way to his wrist and I realized that he was playing with me. He'd just marked me with the exact same wound that I'd inflicted on him only deeper and wider.

  "I've been hoping I'd get a chance to go up against the best the Sanctuary pack had to offer ever since Graves sent our people home to us in cages. I didn't think I'd get the chance to realize that dream quite so quickly."

  "Sorry to disappoint you, but I'm far from the best Sanctuary has to offer."

  Before he could respond I did the absolute last thing he expected. It was something that Carson had showed me before he'd been killed fighting a werewolf the night of the assault on the estate.

  Most hybrids would do everything they could to keep an opponent from getting around behind them. It was analogous to fighter pilots back in World War II. Once someone got behind you, your options were limited and if they got a good grip on you then you were as good as dead.

  Carson had known a counter for that rule, a single instance when it was okay to turn your back on someone who was trying to kill you.

  I locked my left hand around Nicolas' right wrist and then spun around, bringing my right arm back around behind him so that it pressed against his back as I pulled him across my hip. It bore a lot of resemblance to a classic judo takedown, just with the added risk that your enemy would rip you to shreds if you were too slow or didn't execute that technique just right.

  The move went against every instinct I'd inherited from my beast. It required the kind of total commitment to the attack that I'd marveled at every time I saw Jasmin fight. All good techniques required a degree of commitment, a willingness to risk being hurt in return for hurting your opponent, but I'd always preferred stuff that involved less risk even though it often meant a longer, more drawn-out fight.

  This technique was nothing at all like that. It was in-your-face dangerous for only moderate benefits, but I already knew I couldn't match Nicolas' speed, so fighting using my normal style wasn't going to work.

  Unlike the last time I'd tried to use something that Carson had shown me, the throw worked. Nicolas' feet shot straight up into the air as I flipped him over my hip and threw him into the ground with as much force as I could muster.

  I'd been hoping to break his neck, but rather than tightening up, he relaxed into the throw and controlled his descent enough that he was able to spread the impact out over one whole side of his body.

  I kept hold of his wrist with the intention of throwing a joint lock on it, but he spun around before I could even begin to apply the arm bar. I should have let go of his arm and jumped backwards. I wasn't good enough with Carson's style of fighting to go up against someone who knew what they were doing, but I made the classic beginner's mistake and fixated on what I wanted to do to Nicolas rather than just responding to the fight as it developed.

  A split second later I slammed into the ground with enough force to knock the wind out of me. I hadn't even seen his takedown coming.

  "Isaac Nazir, second-in-command of the Sanctuary pack. Said to be Alec's strong right hand, a dependable if uninspired fighter who has more experience than you'd expect out of someone who's only seventeen, because he's spent the last several years in a constant series of low-level skirmishes against the other Sanctuary pack."

  Nicolas had me in some kind of grappling hold. I tried to muscle my way free, but he manhandled me like I was a child. He had me stretched out with my arms at full extension, talons digging into my right arm and his claws locked on my left arm. His strength was incredible, but it hardly mattered. I'd been there before with Wyatt.

  Wyatt, Carson and Grayson had been the only hybrids that I'd ever seen use the odd, grappling style of fighting that Nicolas was using against me now with such devastating results. I'd seen them in action and I knew that once an experienced grappler got hold of someone th
ey were in trouble.

  I didn't have the skills to get away from Nicolas now and Ash wasn't in any condition to come save me.

  "You don't give yourself enough credit, Nazir. Admittedly, your showing has been pretty pathetic so far, but you're definitely the best the Sanctuary pack has to offer me. I can't fight Graves—not now that he's got a get-out-of-jail-free card—but at least I'll be able to say that I took down his second in command without breaking a sweat.

  "I do have to say that you caught me by surprise with that hip throw. When exactly did Carson teach that to you? I never thought that old bag of bones would leave his precious haven."

  The pressure on my arms was excruciating. I had to strain against him to stop from having my arms broken, but that was exactly what he wanted me to do. He had all of the leverage and he was just tiring me out so I wouldn't have any chance of breaking free when he finally went for a new hold.

  My breath was coming in deep gasps now, but I still managed to respond to him. "Seriously, you need better intelligence. I wish I could be there when you finally go up against Jasmin. She's going to wipe the floor with you."

  "The wolf? She's less than nothing."

  "Funny, that's exactly what I was thinking of you."

  He shifted his grip, flipping me over onto my stomach as he repositioned so he had a clear shot at my neck. I fought him with everything I had left, and it was almost enough. I could feel his arms starting to shake from the effort of containing me, but he was just too strong.

  I screamed in pain as his claws sank even more deeply into my flesh. My timing was perfect. It took a very loud sound to mask the roar of an engine under hard acceleration, but I managed it.

  Nicolas didn't hear Celeste's Pathfinder until the very last second.

  She hit doing somewhere in excess of thirty miles per hour and I heard massive hybrid bones crunch.

  He was between me and the vehicle, but a significant amount of the force of the impact was transmitted through his body and into me. We were both thrown across the parking lot, a cartwheeling maelstrom of claws and talons.